


Marked

by AvaBlook



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Becoming a Fear Entity Avatar (The Magnus Archives), Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 09:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30019959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaBlook/pseuds/AvaBlook
Summary: The Animorphs are marked by the Fear Entities
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Marked

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote most of this at like 1 am while procrastinating sleep so it's not my usual style  
> Also I haven't read Animorphs in years so please excuse me being really vague  
> (Also yes I know that in canon the fight between Jake and David happened on the roof of the mall, I changed it on purpose)

Tobias was the first of them to be marked by the entities. After all, who knew how small a single human life was better than an overlooked, bullied kid no one seemed to care about?

It could have been the Lonely that took him. He was certainly isolated enough. But how many hours had he spent gazing out the windows in class, staring out into the endless expanse of the sky and idly daydreaming about a better life that could exist somewhere out there? 

When Tobias was twelve and everything in his life had overwhelmed him, he took the bus downtown. He found the tallest building he could. He talked his way past the doorman, took the elevator to the roof, and climbed the fence. When he jumped, he did so with his back to the ground, so he could watch the sky above him as he fell. 

And then there was nothing but the wind whistling past his ears and the endless stretch of blue above him. It was nice. Peaceful.

After a few minutes of uninterrupted falling, Tobias craned his head to the side, wanting to see how close the ground was, how much longer it would be before he hit. But the ground was gone. Below him was only more sky. He could just keep falling, forever.

Tobias wasn’t terrified. He was ecstatic.

* * *

Morphing had always been different for Cassie. She had more control over how her morphs progressed than the others did. When they met Ax, he introduced her to the word _estreen_ , but before then, Cassie had just considered it being in touch with her body. Long hours spent working in the barn had made her grounded, and her body, even as it warped and reshaped itself, was _hers._

And when her control over her morphing continued to improve, well, who among them knew what the limits of being an _estreen_ were? 

It took some time for Cassie to recognize the Flesh’s mark on her, but when she did, she accepted it readily enough. She had grown up around the terror of wounded prey, birds and reptiles and squirmy small mammals all flinching from her hands as if they had teeth. That was the nature of the world; for all that she wanted to protect animals, even she had to acknowledge that almost every animal would be eaten eventually.

And as she rushed into battle in a wolf morph with far too many teeth, she reminded herself that humans were animals too.

* * *

None of them were sure when exactly the Slaughter latched its claws into Rachel. Her gleeful bloodlust had been there even during their first raid on the Yeerk Pool, and surely that was too early for it to have noticed her… but what did they know, really? They were a bunch of kids, and between an alien invasion and reality-warping fear gods, they were in over their heads.

So maybe the Slaughter had marked Rachel during their first battle. Maybe even before. They wanted to believe that; _she_ wanted to believe that, because the alternative was that the thrill she felt at the scent of blood had been there all along. That maybe her blind rage came from _her_ , and not some mysterious supernatural being. 

Of course some part of it had come from her. Rachel knew as much, no matter how much she wished otherwise. The Slaughter had chosen her because so much of her already belonged to it. 

* * *

The Lonely might have claimed Ax, like it almost claimed Tobias. He was the only survivor of the crash, left stranded on an alien world. But the people there became his friends, even when he tried to keep his distance. Before long, he gave in and let himself trust them, and they were enough to keep the Lonely at bay.

Friends didn’t solve the issue of being stranded on an alien world, however. Ax could morph, reshape his body to look human, but there were a hundred thousand social rules he had never learned, could never keep track of. His human morph looked fine at first glance, but if you watched him move, listened to him talk, it became obvious that something was off about him.

The other Animorphs tried to teach him how to blend in. The Stranger taught him how to use his difference. 

Ax was never going to pass for human entirely, not with his shallow understanding of how humans worked. He might as well take advantage of that. A flash of too-big eyes, a few awkward, stumbling steps, a smile that looked like it took effort, and most humans were on edge, ready to listen to one of the others. As long as it helped with the mission, and his unmorphed body still felt like his own, Ax had no complaints. 

* * *

The Animorphs had been at war for a year when Marco started waking up with cobwebs in his hair.

He should have seen it coming. He was the plans guy, after all, the one who tried to see all the moving pieces and fit them together, figure out how to use them to his advantage. From what they’d managed to learn about the powers, he had been falling into the Web’s domain since the day he agreed to join the fight. 

Of course, that was the Web’s whole deal, wasn’t it? There had never been another choice for Marco, not really. If the Animorphs were going to survive and defeat the Yeerks, they needed someone to make the plans, and Marco couldn’t leave anything to chance. 

If this was the cost of keeping the others safe, he’d accept it. He brushed the cobwebs out of his hair and didn’t flinch when a stray spider skittered across his hand. 

Marco had always been good at finding the bright clear line from A to B, but now he could see that line was only one thread in a much larger web.

* * *

There was more than one way to be trapped.

You could be trapped physically, of course, locked up in a cage or a room or even a coffin, but that wasn’t the only possibility. You could also be confined by expectations, by responsibilities, by titles and trust and other people relying on you.

Jake meant it when he asked Ax not to call him a Prince. That title brought with it almost more responsibility than Jake could comprehend. His teammates’ lives and the fate of humanity itself were in Jake’s hands.

For all that it wasn’t a physical weight, it was enough to crush Jake. 

Almost enough, at least.

The weight of what he had to do didn’t end up paralyzing Jake; it drove him forwards, even if his pace was a crawl. He was determined to learn to be the leader his team needed, the savior the earth needed. 

They say if you put enough pressure on coal, it will turn to diamonds. But, again, this was not literal pressure. 

When David challenged Jake to a fight, Jake accepted it wearily. This was one more thing he _had_ to do, one more responsibility weighing him down, and trying to run from his responsibilities had never worked before. David lunged for Jake’s throat—and the ground beneath his feet swallowed him, leaving Jake standing alone.

David’s defeat didn’t lift a weight from Jake’s shoulders. If anything, the burden he bore got heavier.


End file.
